I agree with you, Mike deserves a lot of credit. One thing I dig about him in particular is that he seems to have started with a sound very influenced by Kurt's but, over the years, gradually evolved that language into something distinctly his own. (Although his tone is a little thin and weak for my taste.)

Another thing is, as you said, his writing. His tunes are so beautiful, and an interesting contrast from his soloing. Like, in this video, he blazes through "But Beautiful," but then when you listen to his records you find a more intimate focus. He's more dynamic than it appears at first listen. That's what sets him apart from other guys such as Lage & Kreisberg in my opinion... I guess I don't see them as possessing the same level of creative versatility.

Ya Mike Moreno is awesome, he and Tim Miller are my favorite players right now. They're both amazing.

As to comparing Nir Felder to Mike Moreno...Nir's cool and all but it's a totally different style in my opinion. Mike has a lot of the tradition in him...a lot of old school. He just makes something new out of it.

Nir Felder on the other hand...not so much tradition lol. Actually, a friend of mine had a lesson with him and asked him about the crazy intervalic triad stuff he does. Nir Felder replied : "I just make up a random progression in my head that has nothing to do with the tune and I play the triads for the chords". That said, when Nir's freaking out...he's actually just freaking out lol, no point getting a mental hard-on trying to make sense of it.

Sorry to go a little off topic, Horg, would love to hear any more info on the your friends lesson with nir? I always thought the whole big interval thing was very random that he does but he, to me is a very interesting player, very little info or interviews about his approach on line.

I tried to get a lesson w/ Nir for about a year last year and we just never could work out a time when both of our schedules allowed. I finally just figured that all of the answers to my questions were in his playing so I sat down and transcribed several pages worth of his lines from various recordings. His playing is very 'transcribable', in my opinion, because he plays fairly well-defined phrases, much like Moreno. It is easier to take a specific line or idea from them since they don't just run 8th notes for 8 choruses.

I found these recordings from Adam Niewood and mined them for patterns that pop up (link below). He does use a ton of triadic-type lines, especially in diminished-type patterns (a lot of this, actually). He also is pretty fond of augmented triad patterns. If you listen to enough of his stuff, you can start to hear his approach fairly clearly. His touch, tone, and sense of time are extremely important...I can attest to that. When I play his lines, they don't sound like him! Anyway, there is a lot of GREAT music in these recordings including some standards.

Sorry jazzacast55, that's all I know of the lesson. The question was what goes through his head when he does all that stuff and his answer was that he just makes up a progression. Now, of course, this implies it isn't RANDOM crap, it's just that he decides to completely, or partially, ignore the ACTUAL changes to the tune they're playing and instead plays whatever progression he feels like. That's pretty much all I know of his approach. That said, it just goes to show you that it's all about rhythm.

Anyone know what pickups Mike has in his guitar? Also he uses round wound string right, I'm guessing 12s, it seem like know one uses flatwounds, Rosenwinkel, Hekselman, Kreisberg, they all use round wounds, funny